The Ballesta Islands were AMAZING! There was an abundance of sea lions and birds. We even saw crabs and starfish and penguins. The National Reserve wasn't was excited as I expected and the lunch was crazy expensive, but overall, a very good tour.

Very professional and inspiring guides both for English and Spanish speaking customers. Both Ballestas Islands and Paracas National Reserve trips were perfectly scheduled and guided. With the help of positive attitude of the guides people started to chat with each other as if we had been friends already before.

Ballestas Islands tour was worth it, but the Paracas National Reserve was not.

Ballestas Islands tour good:
Got you up close to the animals.
Boat slowed down for pictures.
Various locations visited.
Neat information from tour guide.

The bad:
Wear wind-proof jacket and a hat as it is both sunny, windy and chilly.
Likely to get pooped on by birds as a few people did.

Paracas National Reserve tour good:
A few nice viewpoints if you don't have much ocean / desert experience.

The bad:
Tour guide only gave 30 minutes at the first location that had 3 sights to see and told us we only had time for ONE. Picking one was difficult and left you sad you missed out on the other two. Could have time to see anthropology museum, natural history museum, or walk to beach and see flamingos. Definitely not enough time for all 3, or even 2. This was very upsetting to many people including myself. Side Opinion: museums were terrible, go see flamingos.
Visited 3 viewpoints and were all pretty much similar scenery and it got old fast.
Last stop was a 2 hour waste at a very overpriced seafood restaurant that we couldn't afford anything.
No bathrooms, not even at restaurant. Dock near restaurant had pay-for bathrooms that were dirty and no running water.

Save your time and money. Get the islands tour and take a taxi into the reserve to look at viewpoints and museums if you'd like.

Nice trip to see over 250,000 birds and desert wonder.

The tour was great. We had Ballestas first and we could see all the animals we had been promised. And we could come very close. The tour of Paracas Reserve was to follow. We had a knowledgeable guide - Eduardo, who was really passionate and told us a lot about history and nature of the beauty spot.

Stunning islands and spectacular desert and beaches. The biodiversity in Peru is incredible and encapsulated in this quick tour, from birds to sea lions to penguins. The tour included a delicious though pricey seafood lunch.

I recommend this tour. The boat ride was very interesting and informative. We saw many animals and had a lot of fun. Only downfall is that the boat ride is very rough... so if you get seasick, I recommend taking Dramamine. After, we had a bit of time to explore before the Paracas tour. That was good because we got to grab something to eat in between. The Paracas tour was a little less put together, but interesting nonetheless. We spent a lot of time at the visitor center, but then got rushed through the rest of the tour. My favorite part was the red sand beach and we didn't even get to stay there for 10 minutes because they rushed us so much. We ended in a little beachside town where we were basically coerced into eating at a restaurant of their choice, which was very expensive. Overall, it was still a lot of fun and was very informative and worth the money.

Unfortunately due to high winds the boat trip to the islands was cancelled so I can't review that part. They did offer to take us the next day but we had to catch a bus back to Lima. The reserve tour was interesting. We stopped at several locations and got some great pictures. We were the only English speaking people on the bus, but the guide made sure to repeat everything to us so we understood. Overall worth seeing as it is very unique from the other parts of Peru.

It was good , but comparing to ushuaia in argentina is not so good. The boats are far from the animals